Old Mole Variety Hour

The Old Mole burrows down to the roots of the great issues of our time – the struggles of ordinary people for democratic and sustainable ways of life. The Mole goes where corporate media fear to tread, supporting grassroots challenges to top-down authority and giving voice to movements that shake the foundations of an unjust society. The Moles' perspective is democratic, broadly socialist, and feminist. (We count Karl Marx as a friend).

Clayton Morgareidge hosts the show and we hear radical takes on how to run elections, a venue for leftist comedy at the Red & Black Cafe, the neoliberal soul, Richard Sherman's post-game rant, and class war and the security state.

Frann Michel reads from an essay by Gavin Mueller in Jacobin, as well as from other sources, to argue that gentrification is not simply a cultural change in a neighborhood, but instead is driven by economic forces and backed by state power. But those forces can be collectively opposed, and alternatives proposed, as evidenced in the global--and local--Right to the City movement. You can also read Frann's commentary.

Joe Clement talks with James Tracy, author of "Dispatches Against Displacement: field notes from San Francisco's housing war". They consider what gentrification is as an economic and by extension racialized form of domination, how different cities experience gentrification differently, and real world strategies for fighting back and protecting housing from market forces. James will be speaking at Reading Frenzy books off of N Beech and Mississippi at 6pm on Sunday the 19th, where there'll be a community discussion about fighting displacement.

James Tracy is a Bay Area native and a community organizer. He is co-founder of the San Francisco Community Land Trust (which uses public and private money to buy up housing stock and take it out of the real estate market), as well as a poet and co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power, which he's been interviewed about on KBOO before.

On their Left and the Law segment, Jan Haaken and Mike Snedeker discuss a recent research report by The Sentencing Project, titled "Race and Punishment: Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for Punitive Polices." The report describes how deeply embedded racism is in the criminal justice system, and how implicit or unconscious racism among white Americans props up this destructive system. Jan and Mike talk about key reforms described in the report, and ways of challenging racist rhetoric on crime and punishment.

Click the above links for individual segments or the play button below to listen to the whole show including music clips. You can follow us on Twitter or Facebook to get updates about the show or email us at oldmolevarietyhour>>at<<gmail<<dot>>com with comments, questions, suggestions, or your interest in becoming part of or occasionally contributing to the Old Mole collective.

Iven Hale hosts today's show featuring analysis of US military action in the Middle East as well as the music of, and a movie about, Portland based singer-songwriter Elliot Smith.

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To hear this show in its entirety, use the play button below. To hear individual segments, follow these links:

Movie Moles Frann Michel and Iven Hale discuss Heaven Adores You, the new film about Portland singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, which opens the NW Film Center's Reel Music Festival. The film is a straightforward tale of the tragic impact of fame on a sensitive artistic genius, but offers previously unheard music and new interviews with his friends and fellow musicians, beautiful footage of Portland, and clips from the KBOO archives.

What does the US think it's doing as it resumes bombing in Iraq and adds parts of Syria to its target list? And what will be the likely result of these actions? Middle East Reports (MERIP) is the magazine that covers the Middle East from a critical left perspective, and here its editor Chris Toesing talks with the Old Mole's Bill Resnick about these questions.
A subscription to the magazine is available as a thank you gift for your financial support of KBOO.

It's so obvious that the "War on Terror" cannot possibly accomplish what it claims to be its goals that either those who are running the war are utter fools, or else their goals are quite different from what they say they are. David Mizner explores the most likey unstated purposes of the war in a piece on the Jacobin Magazine website. Here Clayton Morgareidge lays out the main points.

"Heaven Adores You" is a tribute to the music and the life of the late Portland singer and songwriter Elliot Smith. The film, directed and produced by Nickolas Rossi, features many views of Portland in the 90s as well as Smith's music. Our Movie Moles Frann Michel and Iven Hale give us this appreciative review.

It's convenient to have the Old Mole audio files available.
Even more useful for some of us would be transcripts of the commentaries (Clayton Morgareidge). Written material allows a person a chance to review, consider, digest and refer to mentioned references & thinkers. The "Well Read Red" commentary from 4 Aug 08 is a good example of a piece I'd like to read at my own pace.